Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked widespread anger after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of women by taking off their clothing.
Multiple instances have been seen where the tool has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a message.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an posted picture through its AI image editing function.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been condemned for permitting users to create pictures and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of generating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying images of persons in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
